


the wrong idea

by chlodine



Category: Uncharted (Video Games)
Genre: Chlodine Week, F/F, Gen, yoink! im alive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 09:57:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20307604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chlodine/pseuds/chlodine
Summary: Sitting by the pool in a ratty Hawaiian shirt, Sam watches them and smokes, and thinks about how he’s probably out of a job now that they're partnered up officially.(or: three times sam makes an ass out of u, me, and chloe.)





	the wrong idea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lisahawkeye.tumblr.com](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=lisahawkeye.tumblr.com).

> for ms lisa h eye (lisahawkeye) whomst is an icon
> 
> day 1: misunderstanding
> 
> pls read:  
sam n chloe in this fic have a made up history which i only put in to make sams thought process make sense skdjfhsj

The way back to civilisation is long and rocky. It’s a ten-minute hunt for a working vehicle in the dark before they’re finally hitting the road.

Spirits still high, they pile in eagerly. Quickly, however, exhaustion catches up to them and conversation putters out. Nadine dozes off in the passenger’s seat, and Sam kicks his feet up onto door of the jeep and reclines into the other door, settling in for a long ride. In the driver’s seat, Chloe just hums a tune he doesn’t know and taps at the wheel. 

The forest around them buzzes with life and the engine drones on. 

Not for the first time, Sam inhales a lungful of fresh air and feels weightless. Liberated. He can be as reckless as he was at nineteen, can still be a numbskull, but he has learned about respect and gratitude over the years. Respect and gratitude for simple pleasures: relaxing in the back of a car, aching from a good workout, peaceful quiet—the only thing missing is a cigarette. 

(It’s strange; he feels like he hadn’t aged a day in prison as if someone had hit pause on his life and, simultaneously, feels like he’s aeons ahead of where he was before.) 

Chloe looks over when he sighs contentedly. She grins and rifles through a compartment by the wheel, tossing him a box when she finds it. The lighter’s out before Chloe’s eyes are even back on the road. Oh, yes, life is good. 

“You’re a goddamn lifesaver,” he groans through a drag. Immediately, he feels grounded. Less sentimental, thank god for that. His bruises and cuts still ache though. 

Chloe snorts. “Say that again when I’m holding your hand through chemo.” 

“As long as you bring flowers.” 

“The prettiest bunch,” she says, dry. She slings an arm over the back of Nadine’s chair and tilts her head up as she draws in a breath of her own. “Other than seeing an oncologist, what are you going to do after this?” 

“Who knows?” He blows smoke through his nose. “Hakuna Matata, right?” 

“How is it that _Nate _has more sense than you?” The car slows for a sharp turn, barely jostles. Chloe glances at Nadine so quick Sam almost misses it. 

“I got the good looks; thought I’d leave a little something for him.” 

She laughs again, at him, and he doesn’t even grouch about it. 

“What are _you_ going to do with your third of a million—or, well, whatever’s left after Nadine takes her cut?” Out the corner of his eye, he sees Chloe shrug. He leers and jerks a thumb at the back of Nadine’s head. “Oughta steal it back from her when we’re all split up, huh?” 

This, apparently, is not worthy of a verbal response. All he gets is a dirty look and the cold shoulder.

Sam really can be a numbskull. He sits up and leans forward. “Come on, I was joking.”

The car slows, reaching traffic. Surly, Chloe nudges Sam’s face away with a sweaty arm, none too gently at that.

Beside them, Nadine dozes on. 

“Dunno, mate,” she finally says, taps the wheel again, and smiles. It’s small, a little on the wistful side. “Going legit doesn’t seem all that bad anymore, with her.” 

It’s now that Sam realises he has wildly misjudged their dynamic. He had simply assumed, because their history and, well, their _western-ness_, that his and Chloe’s camaraderie was deeper than the one she shared with Nadine. And he _doesn’t_ mean anything suspect by that, rather that they are both from English speaking countries and it is, presumably, both of their mother tongues. Language is one of the most recognisable traits of a shared culture, after all. Nadine, in the face of all this, seemed tertiary to them.

Sure, he will readily admit that Nadine’s an absolute bulldozer in a fight and cunning when she’s in the right mood for it, but connecting on a genuine emotional level? Sam cannot fathom. Then again, he supposes she feels the same way about him. They have literally been at each other’s throats since the moment they’d met. Evidently, Chloe finds her company agreeable enough to consider joint professional careers. 

Alas, it seems that he has been quite dense. 

He considers the women again, for a moment, and catches Chloe’s stare in the rear-view mirror. She looks accusing and defensive all at once, and Sam puzzles on. They maintain eye contact for as long as Sam can stand it—not very long; he yields, raising his hands and cracking a smile. 

“Legit suits you,” is all he says. 

Grudgingly, possibly after convincing herself that Sam is, indeed, being honest, she smiles and says, “Maybe.”

The sounds of people come swelling from the approaching town and Nadine stirs, finally.

She blinks and rolls her head around on its socket, wincing at what is likely a whole lot of sore muscles. As she takes stock of where she is, peering at the passing buildings, she catches sight of Sam, cigarette smoke spiralling away. All she does is roll her eyes at him. Sam huffs and grinds the butt out under his heel.

Nadine turns to Chloe. “Please tell me we’re headed for a shower and a bed.”

“I’ll do you one better,” says Chloe, sounding pleased with herself, “what do you think of the Hilton?” 

Nadine sits straighter, grins, and rubs ruefully at a stiff shoulder. “Oh, paradise.” 

Sam watches them, sees the way Chloe drives and doesn’t tap at the wheel out of boredom or impatience or restlessness.

At the Hilton, they splurge—everyone gets their own room, brunch included.

And, sitting by the pool in a ratty Hawaiian shirt, Sam watches them and smokes, and thinks about how he’s probably out of a job now that they're partnered up officially. 

* * *

They ask him if he’s interested in Mediterranean legends.

He doesn’t exactly need the money. After Avery and the tusk, he’s pretty much set for life. On top of all that, Nate has a job opened permanently with Sam’s name on it. Just for financial stability, in case his dear ol’ brother ever decides that stability isn’t in fact overrated. But he’s still a Drake and the call of adventure isn’t something he can simply ignore. He answers, enthusiastically, with a yes.

Chloe, also, sells it brilliantly. If she wanted, he reckons she could be one shark of a salesperson.

He’s asking about Charlie and the job, and how it’s been working with Nadine this past year when the woman in question comes in from the hallway of Chloe’s London apartment.

Immediately, Chloe gives him a look before he can say something rude, and he feels sour like a chided teenager. Obviously, the logical thing to do is don a smile as fake as he can muster and stride to Nadine for a hug. 

He manages to get out a cheery, “Nadine! Nice to see ya—” before she elbows him in the gut in an effort to avoid him. He grunts but laughs it all off anyway. Oddly enough, he _has_ missed their banter. To her credit, she allows a tiny flicker of a smile to grace her face for him.

“I forgot how irritating you are.” 

“You’ll warm up to me,” he insists. 

Chloe smiles brightly as if they’d actually hugged it out and greeted each other like long lost family members—and he knows about this one. “If she does, I’ll assume you’re holding her at gunpoint.” 

“Been there, done that,” Nadine says.

He opens his mouth to point out that it only happened the _one_ time, but Chloe claps her hands before he can and points at her table where paper sits in haphazard piles and maps are scribbled over. “Come on now. Work to do.”

So, work they do.

Only when they decide to turn in for the night does he notice how out of place he is.

Nadine disappears down the hall again, deeper into what Sam knows for a fact is a one-bedroom apartment. On the couch, where he’s slumming it for the night, a weathered Shoreline jacket is draped. Mugs crowd the coffee table, along with a variety of guns that Chloe certainly doesn’t own, and laundry for two are hung up on the balcony.

It’s all so… domestic. He, the direct opposite.

And, yeah, he was stuck in a Panamanian prison for near half his adult life and he’s not the most observant guy in the world, but the gay rights movement hadn’t passed him by completely. He did always think Chloe was the fluid type.

From the kitchen comes the sound of a cupboard closing, followed by shuffling, then Chloe’s at the door, frowning at him. He’s just standing by the couch, examining his surroundings. 

“What?” She stops stirring her tea to frown some more at him. “The cushions too lumpy for you?”

“Nah,” he says, perhaps a little too fast, because Chloe tilts her head and just keeps looking at him. “Just— Well.” 

He scratches his head, his beard.

Nate once told him Chloe only drank water or coffee blacker than the void or expensive alcohol. Nothing else. Definitely not tea. Things could have changed in the years since they were together, obviously, but somehow this seems important. 

Still confused but infinitely more tired, she shrugs at him and moves for the hallway. “You need to sleep, dude.”

“Yeah. Okay.” 

He thinks harder about everything, about how he third wheeled the whole evening, about that one job he’d done with Chloe and Nate months before he got mixed up with Rafe. About how Chloe is someone he actually trusts now where before he only trusted that it was in her best interest to look out for him. 

She was always good at being sneaky when she wanted to be, disguised by all her gaudy showmanship and charm, and pretty lies. (To this, he can relate. It is one of many reasons why he figures that, though not the same, they are cut from at least _similar_ cloths.)

God, she even managed to be Nate’s whatever-she-was on-and-off for almost a decade before he caught on. He is truly, on an unprecedented level, an idiot when it comes to Chloe and the state of her affairs. Not that he ever felt close enough to care too much. Now, however, well, he needs another smoke. 

“Just,” he says again. Chloe stops and waits. Abruptly, he says: “Keep it down.” 

Chloe looks at him blankly. “What?”

“You can’t pull the wool over my eyes twice, pal,” he jokes. “First, that fling with Nate—but okay, he’s my brother, it’s my god given right to ignore his love life. Can’t say I saw this coming though.”

“Sam,” Chloe says slowly, “what the hell are you on about?” 

“Oh, please. You and—” He stops. Reassesses everything in the face of a bewildered and increasingly affronted Chloe.

Maybe he was born with the good looks _and_ a third foot attached to the inside of his mouth. Nate wins, all things considered. 

Chloe, she’s always been sharp, catches onto what he’s been insinuating pretty quick and begins to sputter some disjointed sounds at the very notion. He is so thankful he can hear the shower running. Nadine would kill him for this.

“Ah, I’m sorry.”

“...we’re roommates,” she explains lamely.

He sits, finally, and feels worse. It’s awkward, Chloe looking down at him, red in the face, and him trying not to feel as stupid as he’s been. “Hey, you know I didn’t mean anything—” 

“Y’know what? It’s fine.” She doesn’t look like she thinks it’s fine. At his scepticism, she schools her face into something less startled. She ends up looking contemplative and vaguely sullen. “Just… roommates. God, Sam, never been warned off mixing business with pleasure, have you?”

“Hey, look, you two are awfully close, shacking up together and everything. What am I supposed to think?”

Another beat spent gawking at each other. Out of nowhere, Chloe barks a laugh. “Right, I forgot thinking isn’t a strong suit for you. It’s not your fault you’re a Drake.”

Ah, yes, the gratitude he’d learned from prison. Right now, he’s feeling very grateful that Chloe’s decided to let him off the hook and razz him. (In truth, she wants to avoid that conversation more than he does.) He waggles his eyebrows. “Well, if you aren’t going to...”

Chloe glares, then. A real one. 

“Sam,” she growls in warning. 

He might get whiplash from this conversation and all the twists and turns it’s taken thus far. This is why he’s single—people are just too confusing. He wonders when mankind decided that straightforward honesty, just coming out with it all, wasn’t hip anymore.

“Whoa,” he says, beginning to explain that he was _joking_ and muddle his way through an explanation about how he’s perfectly okay being alone right now, but then he gets it. His moment of clarity strikes him still. Chloe regards him with poorly hidden suspicion when he trails off to just squint at her.

Then, because he’s an asshole and the tone of this conversation hasn’t caught up with his brain, he guffaws at the predicament Chloe’s found herself in. This is just too good. 

“Holy _shit_,” he says. “You, of all people, pining?”

She grimaces and readjusts her grip on the cuppa, turning around and stepping through the threshold. “Goodnight.” 

The defeat in her voice drags a sliver of remorse into him, then a whole torrent of it.

“Yikes,” he mutters. Guiltily, he calls after her and holds a hand up when she spins around looking like she’s going to tear him a new one for keeping her here for this bullshit. “Sorry about that, seriously.”

“We aren’t having this conversation.”

Sam, feeling generous and wise now that he’s sussed out the truth, smiles sympathetically. “You should just ask her.” 

Chloe does not take too kindly to his advice. “No offence but you aren’t exactly Casanova.”

“Maybe not but you aren’t going to get anywhere keeping it to yourself.”

“Sam,” she says in warning.

He sinks into the cushions. “I’m just saying.”

She must be scowling up a storm down the hallway what with how thunderous she sounds. “Here’s a piece of advice, mate: you don’t always have to go somewhere.” A soft inhale, and she turns back, face devoid of emotion. “Spend less time jumping to conclusions, and maybe you won’t have friends that get sick of you and a brother that’s passed you by. Maybe you won’t be so alone.” 

Then, she’s gone and the lights flip off behind her. 

“Goodnight,” he says, shell-shocked, to absolutely no one.

* * *

Nate is sympathetic at first. A little hurt that Chloe hadn’t called him first for the job but he sorts it out with her on the phone. Sam sits, poking Cassie’s tiny nose, and making faces every time Nate laughs over the line. 

After that, he declares himself neutral and says that whatever beef Sam has with the Frazer-Ross duo, they’ll have to sort out amongst themselves. No sir, no drama for Nathan “Switzerland” Drake.

Sam’s a stubborn guy, though, and he knows the other two are worse than him about it, so they don’t speak for months after he leaves that night. Still a little dumbfounded, he wonders how the conversation had escalated that fast. What a mess. 

It’s at one of Nate’s disgusting suburban barbecues when they see each other again. At the condiments table. Chloe sidles up and wrinkles her nose at the amount of mustard he’s squirted on his hot dog. He ignores her fake gag and keeps slathering it on thick.

“We good?” he asks when she leans across to grab the ketchup and _doesn’t_ glower at him. 

“You bet,” she says almost serenely. 

He waits for her to finish before leading the way to a bench he’d painted with Cassie recently. He boasts about it for a few minutes and is relieved when Chloe chuckles and compliments his paint job at all the right moments. 

Their friendship, while brief and not nearly as warm as one might’ve originally thought, has always been like this. Silent understanding and ribbing until it goes too far, and then they wait each other out. He doesn’t know how Nate didn’t go bald back in the day, pulling at his hair out of frustration every time Sam or Chloe crossed the line with each other. 

Their job, out in the Alps, had been four months long. His longest, excluding Avery, simply because he and Chloe had been young and immature, and refused to face their problems immediately. They preferred to drag it all out, make a big deal out of a small one.

They go silent. Across from them, petting Nate’s dog, is Nadine. She looks as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as Sam has ever seen her. 

Shoreline, to her, must be a thing of the past. He’s happy for her and, frankly, overjoyed for himself because Shoreline fucking sucked.

He nods in Nadine’s direction. “Going on the straight n’ narrow worked out, huh?” 

“Best decision I’ve made in my life.” 

“We might never be friends, me and Nadine, but I’m glad you two are, at least.” He blows out a breath and glances at her, then. “So, about that night.” 

“I’m sorry. Kind of. About what I said.” She pauses, thinking. “And, actually...” Pauses again. “Yeah, no, I’m sorry.”

This exchange, for them both, is something like pulling teeth. Still, they’ve grown up and they muscle their way through.

Sam waves a hand. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”

Chloe smirks and shrugs. “Yeah, well.”

There’s a gap in the conversation where they just eat and watch people mill about the yard. 

Chloe sips at her can of beer and swallows, says: “Heard you quit smoking.” 

“A real shame that you’ll have to wait for me to drop dead to bring me flowers.” 

“You’re not so bad.” She claps him on the shoulder, chuckling, and stands. “Anyway, I’ll catch you later. We got a job lined up that’s right up your alley.”

He perks up at that, gives her a thumbs up. 

Looking way too smug for a cordial conversation, she smiles and walks over to Nadine. Sam doesn’t look away fast enough to miss the kiss she plants on Nadine, arms around her neck, tongue and everything. Chloe has never had any sense of shame and this has not changed.

Nadine pulls back, looking bewildered but not altogether surprised. Like she wants to tuck her face into Chloe’s neck and hide from Nate’s chortling. Or like she wants to murder Nate. Suddenly, Nate looks like he wants to run away.

Sam? Well, all he wants is to stop getting the wrong goddamn idea. 

**Author's Note:**

> drop me a comment. i wrote this in 2 hours on the plane and im running on 5hrs of sleep i got a day and a half ago


End file.
